


the story of where the road goes

by misandrywitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:24:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's known Sirius for two years - he should know he's no good at saying no to him by now. </p><p>(aka, the road trip au fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the story of where the road goes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> for sohmer!!!!! because i promised & i luv you!!!! cait suggested the thing w/ the zucchinis & it made me laugh. 
> 
> i don't want to think about the fact that i'm writing a modern marauders au in 2016 except for the fact that i've been meaning to since like 2011 & now's as good a time as any. will be four chapters. i have no update schedule for this, it will be finished when it gets finished. problem? do not email me ever. 
> 
> title from 'road music' by richard siken, naturally

The experience of summer has always, to Remus, been a long and timeless one, unbound by anything other than the number of pages left in his mother’s page-a-day joke-a-day calendar and the number of hours before he’s obligated to pull out a flashlight to read in his room. Outside of school, time has a lot less meaning -- and school takes place somewhere far off from here for a while, anyway, academia’s hallowed halls very different from the rolling hills and green humidity-drenched days of his childhood. Something much more complex and much less familiar. The first half of Remus’s summer, this year, had been eaten up by sophomore-year responsibilities. Living in the city low-rent, filled with words like ‘work experience’ and ‘resume’ and ‘networking,’ the kinds of things James’s father always earnestly asks after. But that had been a month and a half, and now he’s home, days filled with work of a different kind altogether. They wake up early and go to bed late and he’s reading for fun for the first time since Christmas.

So when Remus’s mother shouts at him from the bottom floor, causing Remus to look up from the book he’s been absorbed in since breakfast, he expects her to be drawing attention to the chickens, or an interestingly shaped vegetable (the kind of thing he’d photograph and send to James and Sirius and Peter, for the laughs), or the afternoon’s weather. The kind of thing that winds up passing for fascinating, crosswords and chess and the movement of clouds and the way the air smells before it really rains hard, lists of chores or an old inside joke.

What he finds when he comes down the stairs and into the kitchen is maybe the last thing on earth he expected to see at all: Sirius Black, sitting at his family’s scrubbed kitchen table with a half-full glass of orange juice in front of him, looking so extraordinarily out of place in the middle-of-nowhere Midwest that Remus thinks for a moment he might be hallucinating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“He belong to you?” Remus’s mother is leaning against the kitchen doorframe with her arms crossed, smiling. “I found him in the front yard.”

Or something, Remus thinks. His mind doesn’t seem to want to reconcile what he’s seeing. Sirius -- hair up, all in black, jacket draped over the back of a rickety kitchen chair, boot laces trailing -- in his mom’s house. Outside of the open kitchen door, wind rustles tall grass and there’s a basket of fresh eggs sitting on the counter. He’d only look more out of place on the moon.

Sirius grins and doesn’t say anything, and Remus clears his throat.

“Um,” he says. “I know that concepts like _directions_ and _distance_ are trifling details for lesser men, but you do know that New York City is in, oh,” he guesses the direction, then points, “that way. About five hundred miles that way.”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. He’s still grinning, like a defense mechanism. Sirius grins like that when he doesn’t know what else to do with his face. All teeth. “I know.”

“Well,” Remus says. “Good then. That doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in my kitchen.”

“I drove here,” Sirius says. “And your mother kindly let me in, because she’s a wonderful and hospitable person who says things like ‘Hello, Sirius’ and ‘How are you?’ when she sees someone she hasn’t seen in a long time.”

“Go take a look at that thing sitting in our driveway,” Remus’s mother says, arms still crossed, still smiling.

“Thing?” Remus asks. Trepidation. Something inside his brain says ‘motorcycle.’

“Go on,” Remus’s mother says, and Sirius’s grin stretches another inch, which Remus thought was pretty impossible. “There are piles of veggies to be brought inside this afternoon, too, if you’ll be around.”

“Veggies,” Sirius says. “I can do that.” He stands up and pushes his chair in politely, well-bred manners that he rebels against always sneaking back in when he’s not paying attention, or when he’s confronted with mothers. He steps around Remus’s mother towards the front door and then turns and looks back in Remus’s direction and Remus, god help him, follows him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What the hell is that?” Remus asks, when they get outside.

Sirius glances his way. “It’s a car,” he says.

“More or less.”

“And it’s mine.”

The car, at least ten years old, looks more at home sitting on the Lupin’s gravel driveway than Sirius looks standing next to it. Except for the fact that it’s purple. There isn’t any way around it.

“You bought--”

“Yeah.”

“-- a Barney-colored sedan? Why’d you buy a Barney colored sedan? Why is it in my driveway? I thought it was going to be a motorcycle--”

“Sadly, no. Not today, anyway. Hi, Remus.” Sirius turns from the car, squaring his shoulders so they’re looking right at each other. The midmorning sunlight glints off the purple monstrosity bumper, off of Sirius’s dark hair.

“Hi, Sirius,” Remus says. “It’s nice to see you.” This all feels so incongruous, the kind of strange dream when someone from one part of your life turns up in your childhood elementary school or whatever, but Sirius’s fingers are suddenly on Remus’s shoulder and he lets himself be pulled into a hug that’s solid and firm. Sirius’s arm loops up and around Remus’s shoulders for a second, and Remus squeezes him around the middle for a second longer, and Remus can’t admit that he isn’t happy to see him.

There’s also a part of him, a pretty substantial one, that’s feeling a creeping sense of concern. But Remus is honestly enough with himself to admit that he feels that way at least half the time, anyway, and a good portion of that is usually related, at least tangentially, to Sirius Black. It’s part of the experience.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Remus is obligated to ask when Sirius pulls back -- the voice of reason, or whatever, even if reason is asking the basic questions and expecting some kind of explanation.

Sirius shrugs, scratches at the back of his neck where his hair is pulled back. “I was in Chicago,” he says. “With my uncle. Thought I’d come down.”

“So you bought-- that?” Remus glances pointedly at the car, sitting unashamedly in the driveway. “To drive a state away?”

“More or less, yeah,” Sirius says. “Live a little, Remus. Right?”

“Bus,” Remus says. “Also I own a cell phone, even if I do live in the middle of nowhere.”

“You said you did and I really didn’t believe you at all,” Sirius looks around the yard. Peeling paint fence, tire swing left over from Remus’s childhood, the truck they use when they have to haul anything. Sirius, who lives in a giant penthouse in New York City, who doesn’t think twice about flying across the country or the ocean for holidays or weekends, whose parents get places in a limo and who wears jeans more expensive than Remus’s mother’s car, probably. Remus isn’t enviable, exactly, because being a Black comes with its own weights and burdens that the rest of them only occasionally glimpse at the depths of. But he does feel kind of self-conscious, standing in his own front yard without shoes on, the sky blue and bright ahead rows of dust and grass and shade trees.

“It was kind of spur of the moment, I guess,” Sirius says, still scratching at the back of his neck. “But I was sort of in the vicinity, I couldn’t not come pick vegetables with you, come on now.”

“Fuck off,” Remus says cheerfully. There’s something Sirius isn’t telling but he is happy to see him. “And the car? You can’t tell me it belongs to your uncle.”

“No, it’s mine,” Sirius says. “Bought it cheap but it runs alright. Might paint over it if it keeps running for more than six months.” Remus is about to comment, something clever, but Sirius keeps talking. “I’m driving it to California,” he says, and Remus stops with his mouth open.

“To California.”

“Yeah!” Sirius drops his hand and grins again. More teeth. “To James’s!”

“In that thing?”

“Yeah!” Sirius repeats. “Gonna stop and see every weird roadside attraction between here and there. I’ve charted it out and printed a map and everything, you should be proud of me.”

“I’ve been to the world’s largest ball of string,” Remus says. “It’s not that impressive. I’d be more shocked to see that thing run more than a few miles.”

“Such a downer,” Sirius’s good humor doesn’t seem to be flattened at all, and Remus has to admit there is something kind of fanciful about the idea.

“Okay,” Remus says. “I’ll bite. I’ll buy you a six pack next semester if you make it the whole way without breaking down, even.”

“Well,” Sirius says. “See, that’s kind of why I’m here. A little bit.”

“You drove a state away to get me to teach you to change a tire?” Remus asks. “I’m flattered, but there is this thing you might have heard of called the internet.”

“I know how to change a tire,” Sirius says. “I watched a video about it once.” Remus snorts, but Sirius keeps talking. “But you do know a lot more about cars than me, and about geography and navigating and shit.”

“And shit,” Remus says, with an all-too-familiar sinking feeling. A Sirius Black feeling. The kind he gets when the next thing out of his mouth is going to be something like “No, Sirius, you can’t chug that bottle of vodka and sled down that hill,” or, “No, Sirius, if there’s a security camera right there and you’ll get arrested,” or, “No, all of you, filling the school’s mascot with peanut butter is not good enough reason to skip class this afternoon, and I’m not going to let you use my Costco card.”

“You should come with me, man,” Sirius says -- there it is -- and grins again. “It’ll be an adventure!”

“To James’s.” Remus opens his mouth, closes it again. Doesn’t know what question he’d even begin to try and start formulating. “You’re driving that thing to James’s?”

“Absolutely!”

“And you want me to come with you?”

“Yeah!”

“I’m not -- I’m -- there’s no way I’m going to listen to Morrissey in the car with you for a week,” Remus stammers, caught off guard. Sirius is staring at him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe for Sirius it is -- he’s the kind of person to whom extremes don’t have limits, to which _no_ is just an obstacle and not a wall. Remus doesn’t live that kind of life.

“We could switch it up,” Sirius says. “Some Green Day, some of that waily indie rock shit you like.”

“I can’t just drive with you to California. I have to pick these vegetables,” Remus says. It is fundamentally the wrong thing to say, and he knows it, and Sirius’s face falls. He watches it, the fine lines of his mouth turning down and in on itself.

“Well,” Sirius says after half a beat. “I’ll give you a hand then, right? Do you wear gloves or use a wheelbarrow or what?” And he turns, abruptly, and stomps back towards the open front door.

Remus stares after him for a long moment, watches him pass through the door, the line of his shoulders breaking the light from inside for a moment, hard and square, and then he takes a deep breath and he follows him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be disingenuous to say that Remus has never had friends. He has, sure, childhood friends and high school friends and a handful of exes, even. But until the three friends he’s got now, whose companionship he’s become inexorably and permanently bonded into superglue-to-book-pages style, he’s never made them easily or naturally.

He’d grown up always marked as different, just a little bit. They had moved around a lot so he’d been the new kid, no good at sports and content to keep his head down, let attention slide off of him and towards other people because attention mean the potential for trouble and he was a smart kid about stuff like that. A necessary habit, a practiced arms length even for the people whose company he enjoyed.

James wasn’t the kind of person you could pull that trick on. He also wasn’t the kind of person Remus had expected to ever be friendly with -- one glimpse in their heavy and tedious required Intro to Philosophy class had established that. Tall, handsome, athletic in a way that suggested he was a natural at it. Sirius -- contemptuous, sarcastic, hair already a little too long. And Peter -- too affable in a way that suggested he was nervous, still the first person to really talk to Remus outside of class. Their friendship, through pure twist-of-fate group-project happenstance, had been instant and strange and permanent, and it made every other friendship Remus ever had with anybody seem kind of ridiculous and hollow.

The fact that it had been bonded through the world’s most disastrous presentation that had been saved, somehow, by Sirius’s improvisation skills and the fact that Remus still has the Monty Python Philosopher’s Drinking Song memorized after all this time is just further proof.

That kind of thing is only supposed to happen to people in young adult novels -- he sometimes tries to rationalize it that way. Too good to be true, four eclectic people who haven’t gotten sick of each other two years later even though they spend almost every waking minute together James and Sirius’s shared dorm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even so, watching Sirius irritably pull at the defunct wheelbarrow that sits along the side of their back porch as more of a decoration than anything feels like it’s crossed some kind of line, and Remus doesn’t know why.

“Are you going to tell him the wheel’s busted?” Remus’s mother says this out of the open kitchen window. Remus, on the back porch, turns to look at her.

“In a minute,” he says. “He kind of deserves it.”

“Did he tell you he was coming by?” Remus’s mother asks. She’s always had a very nonchalant air about Remus’s friends, who have come to stay twice so far and left quite an impression, Remus is sure. The concept of being part of something that leaves an impression at all is something he’s still warming up towards.

“No,” Remus says. “He didn’t even tell me he’d left New York. That’s kind of how he does things, so maybe I shouldn’t--” Remus trails off. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he says, abruptly.

“Alright, but if he tries to run over my nasturtiums I’m putting a stop to it.”

Remus lets her ruffle his hair as he walks back into the kitchen, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and hits the speed dial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Come to my arms,” James says when he answers the phone, instead of hello, “my beamish boy!”

“Your vorple sword better be going snicker snack,” Remus responds. “Or you’re gonna be his dinner.”

“A real tragedy.” James sounds cheerful and out-of-breath, his state of being. “Hello, Lupin. You never texted back about playing CoD so I assumed I’m alone in the world, and started without you. What’s up?”

“Um,” Remus says. He sits down on the bottom step and holds the phone between his ear and his shoulder. There’s a hole in the knee of his jeans and he pulls at a thread as he tries to formulate what to ask. “Did you know Sirius was in Chicago?”

“Uh, yeah,” James says. He sounds distracted, and there’s music or something in the background. The video game, maybe. “He was chilling with his uncle for a few days. Things were crazy tense when I was there in June but I guess they finally let him off the hook for that disaster of a dinner party we ruined.” Remus remembers the story -- James had stopped in Chicago on his way back and they’d spent a few days smoking and wandering through the natural history museum. That story had begun with an escaped golf cart and champagne and ended with an epic chewing out in Sirius’s direction, as a lot of his family stories tended to. “You talk to him recently or what?”

“Well,” Remus says. “I guess. He called last week to tell me about the motorcycle but that was pretty by the book.” Which is why this is all so strange, because it had been a very innocuous conversation. Long-winded and a little rambling, Sirius narrating his potential purchasing choices and then letting Remus tell him about the book he was reading and a few obscenely-shaped tubers he’d pulled up and photographed. No mention of Sirius’s family, which was pretty normal. No suggestion that he’d be showing up at Remus’s house a week later.

“I think it was spur of the moment,” James says, his voice a little muffled. “I mean, I invited him to come out here to cool off for a few weeks, but he hasn’t bought plane tickets or anything. Probably won’t til the day before, you know how he is. I might get a few days’ notice. You gonna go into the city to see him?”

“No,” Remus says. “Because he’s not in the city.”

“He’s not?”

“No,” Remus says again. “He’s here. And he’s not flying out to you, either.”

“He isn’t?”

“He bought a clunker, a purple piece of shit that probably doesn’t have airbags, and he think he’s gonna drive it across the country.”

The music in the background of James’s side of the conversation shuts off abruptly. “Huh,” he says. “Let me guess. He asked you to go with him.”

Remus almost considers asking how James knew this, but doesn’t. James and Sirius have known each other a long time, since they were children, and they have a strange and solid connection that extends beyond words and into intrinsic understanding. “Yeah,” he says instead.

“You gonna?”

“No!” Remus says. “I don’t know? I can’t really just take off for a week in a car that’s probably going to break down in the middle of nowhere without any kind of real plan and hope for the best.”

“Yeah,” James says. “You’re right.”

“I also can’t let him just go on his own.”

“No,” James says. “You can’t.”

“I really see why they made you captain,” Remus says sourly. “Really, Potter, I feel so inspired.”

“And yet we win,” James says. “Like, a lot. You think you can talk him out of it?”

“I don’t know,” Remus says. “I tried, and he’s pretty arch about it. You might be able to.”

“Maybe,” James says. He sounds contemplative. “I don’t know, Remus, I think--” he stops mid-sentence. “Well,” he says. “He’s gonna do what he needs to do, one way or the other.” This is extremely mysterious and very un-James-y.

“He does not need to drive across the country in a fucking death trap on wheels,” Remus snaps. “It’s not like money is an obstacle if he’s really determined to get there. Pretty sure his family owns a plane and everything.”

“They do,” James says, “but that’s not really the point. Don’t -- don’t send him back home, okay?”

“Like I have the power to do anything with him he doesn’t want to do,” Remus says. He’s a lot more irritated than he’d thought he’d be, but he also shouldn’t have expected James to not take Sirius’s side. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” James says. “I just -- tread carefully. Yeah? He’s really at your place?”

“Yeah,” Remus says. “He’s picking vegetables in the back yard right now.”

“Please send me a picture,” James says. “It’ll be fine, Remus.”

“You say that--” Remus says. “I’m gonna go--”

“Yeah,” James says. “Say hi. I’ll give him a call if it comes to that.”

“I’ll let you know,” Remus says. “Bye, James.” He hangs up, stares down at the phone. The photo in the background is a photo of the four of them after one of James’s soccer matches -- Sirius’s arm slung around Remus’s shoulders. Talking to James usually makes Remus feel better right away but it hadn’t, which makes him feel like there’s something larger going on that he’s not seeing.

He’s sitting like that when Sirius pokes his head through the kitchen door into the hallway, and coughs.

“You wanna give me the tour?” He asks. “Your mom chased me off. I think I was picking peas wrong.”

“City boy,” Remus says, and stands up. “Yeah, sure, I’ll show you around. Don’t laugh at my baby pictures, okay?”

“City boy and proud of it,” Sirius says, and he follows Remus up the stairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He doesn’t laugh at Remus’s baby pictures, framed to be seen as you walk up the staircase, but he does grin, and that’s almost as bad. Remus slugs him in the arm and he retaliates, getting his elbow around Remus’s shoulders to rub his knuckles on Remus’s head, and Remus whacks him in the stomach with the top of his cane until Sirius lets go. So that’s alright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had been a quiet summer, really, without them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I missed you by a month or something, you know,” Sirius says, as they head down the porch and through the yard. Remus’s intention is to scare him off by giving him a real tour of the quiet few acres around their house -- “See, look, fields, what you’ll have to drive through for two days,” -- but it’s actually a beautiful day. Long and golden, the air shimmering with summer heat. “You could have shown me around Chicago, instead of here.”

“I’m sure you did Chicago like an enthusiastic tourist,” Remus says. He pushes the gate in the back of their yard and holds it open as Sirius walks through it.

“That’s the problem,” Sirius says. “We went to a game and everything. I ate a hot dog.”

“Oh, God, what’s happening to you?”

“Fuck if I know,” Sirius looks around them, tall grass bleached golden by the sun. “I did get lost on public transportation and then puke in my uncle’s umbrella stand at 3 a.m.”

“Oh, okay,” Remus says. “I was worried there, for a minute.”

“Says the man who almost tipped over a thousand-dollar antique vase last spring break.”

“Mimosas and I are a dangerous combination,” Remus says. “I’m not all that steady to begin with. And who keeps a thousand-dollar vase in a summer house anyway?”

“Father dearest,” Sirius says, and glowers. Sirius’s glower is a triumph of dramatic facial expressions, fine bones and dark eyebrows and a set to his jaw that says danger. When Remus glowers he looks like a schoolteacher.

They walk through the grass together for a few minutes, side by side. Sirius runs his hands across the tops of the stalks and they brush and whisper against each other. Remus knocks them out of the way with his cane.

“Fuck, it’s hot,” Remus says.

“The city was hotter,” Sirius says. “New York, I mean. Miserable.”

“L.A.’s not gonna be any better.”

“You think it’s a stupid idea,” Sirius says. “I can tell. It’s your eyebrows and the way your mouth gets all pointy when you disapprove of something.”

Remus forces himself to un-purse his mouth. “Yeah,” he says. “I do. Sorry.”

“I’m still gonna go,” Sirius says. “Even if you don’t.”

“I can’t,” Remus says. “I was gone for the first half of the summer, I’ll be gone in September, Mom needs a hand here. And how would I get home again? I’m not gonna stay in California for three weeks and I don't exactly have the money to drop on a flight.”

“I was gonna comp you a plane ticket,” Sirius starts.

“Yeah,” Remus sighs sharply, and walks past him. The grass hisses and slithers around his legs and over the tops of his shoes. It tracks Sirius’s path as he hurries to catch up with him.

“What if I’d said I was gonna give you that car so you could drive back on your own,” he says, a little out of breath.

Remus stops and looks back at him. “Fuck you, Black,” he says, and smiles, and Sirius smiles back.

"I had to give it a shot," he says, "a man of boundless optimism, me. But I didn't really think you were gonna say yes." 

This bothers Remus, even if it's true. Especially because it's true. "You're bad for the environment," he says.

"Yeah," Sirius says. "But not as bad as James. All that hot air." 

“Come on,” Remus says. “Let’s walk to the liquor store.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Sirius says, eyebrows raising. 

“So?” Remus says. He starts walking again. “You have to make your own fun around here.”

“Remus Lupin you animal,” Sirius says, and hurries to catch up with him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They drink half the beers laying sprawled on their backs in the grass behind Remus's yard. The grass is tall enough that it bends outwards, framing them. From the sky, Remus thinks, you'd see two body-shaped impressions in the field, or one big amorphous one. Two people. The sky is blue and deep and clouds move across it in lazy patterns that Sirius traces with his eyes and his imagination. Points out the shapes in them, the kind of thing little kids do. The grass itches Remus's neck and he knows there are bugs in it, and his leg aches, and he's still stuck with the profound impression that he's let Sirius down somehow, failed to live up to some kind of expectation.  

"That one looks like a snail," Sirius says, his finger directing Remus's gaze towards a particularly lumpy cloud to their left. 

It does, sort of. Remus makes a grab for Sirius's half-full beer bottle as his own is empty. "Snail cloud," he says solemnly. "Snoud." 

There's all that, and then there's Sirius's elbow digging absentmindedly into his ribcage, and Sirius's laugh, and the knowledge of his physicality, his presence, knee a few inches from Remus's knee and his hair getting caught in the grass. He pulls at it until Remus pushes his hand away, picks seeds out between strands in between his fingers. 

There's a word for it, maybe, one that Remus doesn't remember. Something on the tip of his tongue somewhere, swept away by afternoon alcohol and sunshine. The opposite of loneliness, the act of being known by someone, the sense of companionship that doesn't rely on anything other than its own existence. Two bodies in a field with the sun stretching shadows lower and lower as it goes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I need you two to do something for me," Remus's mother says after dinner. They're all sitting on the back porch, demolishing a bottle of wine. It's a dark night, still hot. 

"Alright," Sirius says. "I volunteer. I'll do it." He's sitting on the steps with his legs stretched out in front of him, Remus on the other side leaning against the railing. "Just say the word." 

"See all those vegetables taking our the kitchen counter?" Remus's mother gestures towards the open door and all three of them turn to look in that direction even though they can't really see in. "I need you two to help get rid of them." 

"Do you really think that's a good idea after last time?" Remus asks, giving her a look. She gives one right back -- the same expression. Sardonic. He learned it from her. "I'll pull the truck around, but I reserve the right to say I told you so down the line." 

"You mean chuck them?" Sirius asks curiously. "What's wrong with them?" 

"The zucchini grow faster than we can eat them," Remus says. "Than anybody can eat them. We eat them til we're sick and we always have to throw them out. We drown in them. They overwhelm us every summer." 

"We give them away to our neighbors but they're all full-up and sick to death of them," his mother says. "They won't take them and we have to do something."

"Squashpocalypse," Sirius says. "Alright. I'll do it right now, I'll tackle the beast. Go down in the annals of history. Where do you throw them out?"

"Oh, no," Remus's mother says, and she grins a little bit, to her credit. "That isn't what I mean at all."

Sirius raises an eyebrow. When she does explain, he throws back his head and laughs until he realizes she's serious.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Will you please," Remus says for the third or fourth time, "keep your voice down." 

They've parked the truck on a street corner in the neighborhood and he turns off the ignition and stuffs the keys into his pockets as Sirius opens the passenger side door and hops out. 

"I thought all your neighbors were middle-aged and goodnatured," Sirius says, not any quieter than before.

"Yeah, Remus slides out of the front seat and shuts the door as quietly as he can. "And they're Republicans. The last time I did this, Mrs. McMillan chased me away from her porch with a shotgun. I don't think I've ever run that fast in my entire life." 

Sirius clutches at Remus's shoulder, laughing, but he does lower the volume of his voice. 

"Zucchini banditry," he says. "I can't believe you never told us about this. We missed out of two years of phallic vegetable-related prankage, man." 

"Seemed like the kind of thing you have to experience rather than hear about," Remus says. "Here." He shoves a brown paper grocery bag stuffed with squash into Sirius's arms. "We'll start with the Coffer's place since their lights are off and work our way down." 

"Do they not believe in streetlights here?" Sirius says. "I'm gonna trip and impale myself on this zucchini." 

"Shut up," Remus says. "Go on. Just leave it on the mat." 

"You're not going with me?"

"All you, Black. I'll do the next house." 

There is a definite juvenile pleasure in watching Sirius pick his way up the sidewalk and a neatly painted set of porch steps with the bag of zucchini in his arms, and maybe it is odd that Remus never told this particular story, because they've done this on and off for years. Sometimes he feels like there's a gap between this Remus, who grew up in this place, can operate a tractor passably and knows a lot about the weather and spends a lot of time reading on the porch, and academia Remus, who takes notes and attends office hours and joins clubs and goes to parties. One set of attitudes and behaviors for each, and Remus has never been fond of opening up about himself. 

And sometimes, too, they're similar in a way that's bizarre, which is probably how it should be all of the time. And juvenile pleasures don't get less funny with age, either. 

Sirius sets the bag of zucchini down on the welcome mat. And then he, hilariously, glances around them before turning and almost running away from the porch and back to where Remus is standing. The line of his smile is visible in the darkness, really genuine in a way that Remus doesn't doubt at all. 

"We're like Robin Hood," he says. "Except with produce. Your turn." 

"Wait," Remus says. "I promised James I'd take a picture and this he needs to see to believe." 

"You talked to James?" Remus hears, rather than sees, the frown crease Sirius's forehead. 

"For a minute, earlier. When you were doing manual labor." 

"I'm suffering for it, you know. I may have blisters." 

"Right." Sirius grabs a zucchini out of a bag and marches into the middle of the street, then poses. Remus snaps the picture -- the flash goes off and his nerves jump for half a second and Sirius hurries back. The street stays dark and quiet, except for the wind and the insects in the trees. It's cooling down, finally, though Remus isn't cold in his t-shirt. 

"It's quiet out here," Sirius says. "I like it." Their shoulders knock together as they pull more bags out of the back of the truck. 

They work their way down one side of the street in relative silence, the humor of the situation more obvious because of the seriousness of their task. The truck is almost empty when Remus follows Sirius up to someone's front door and watches as he drops the bag down. 

"Why don't you just fly out there?" he asks, and Sirius glances up at him as he straightens. His face is confusing. "I mean, you should go. But that would be easier." 

Sirius chews his bottom lip for a second, and Remus resigns himself to receiving something flippant when Sirius opens his mouth. "Because," he says. "That's exactly why. Cause it's easy. Cause anyone can buy a planet ticket, right, anytime. Cause it's not a thing. It's not a story. Taking a flight you could do anytime doesn't really mean anything, doesn't make it big. Going on a roadtrip with your friend -- yeah."

"Means something." Remus pushes his hair out of his face.

"Maybe it means I'm a moron," Sirius says. "But that's something."

 "Yeah," Remus says. "I just guess you could have called me first." 

"Didn't want to give you time to say no over the phone," Sirius says, sounding sly. "Thought I might catch you off guard if I just showed up. And I wanted to come say hi, so sue me. And, look, I don't know. I thought you might want to get away for a few days too, after that shit with your dad and all." 

"And all," Remus says stiffly. It strikes him how nonchalant and clandestine Sirius can be about other people's problems, like they're no big deal at all, that shit, while simultaneously being so hard and fierce about his own. "Right."

"Shit," Sirius says quickly, and it is to his credit that he recognizes Remus's tone when a year or two ago he wouldn't have at all, "wait, I didn't--" 

What he's going to say remains a mystery, because all of a sudden a light inside the house whose porch they're trespassing on turns on. Their faces are both flooded in yellow-gold indoor lamplight, and Remus's heart is inverse and beating hard, sickening. 

"Fuck," he gasps, "Sirius-- go--" Sirius has already taken two steps away from the house before Remus can even turn around, and he grabs at Remus's hand to practically pull him off the porch and into the street. They tumble down the steps, Remus's legs unsteady under him, and he catches the toe of his sneaker on the uneven asphalt and wobbles. Sirius notices and grabs at both Remus's arms, fingers on his elbows, and he holds on until Remus gets his footing again.

"You're an idiot," he says. 

"And you're gonna develop a reputation as the village troublemaker," Sirius says. 

"Too late for that," Remus says. "I stole too many books from the library as a kid. The damage is done. Give me my arms back, please."

"Right," Sirius says, and does. "I think we should make our escape now before some old coot decides that eleven at night is a great time to call the cops." 

It's not even worth the effort to stay annoyed at him, Remus thinks as he starts the truck back up. Sirius bounces his knee up and down in the passenger seat next to him. And anyway, it was kind of a nice thought. Considerate, even. 

Sort of. 

 

 

 

 

 

"I've never seen the Grand Canyon," Sirius says, even later. They've climbed out onto the section of roof accessible from the hallway window, in that Sirius yanked the window open and had already slid his legs out before Remus could really put a stop to him or tell him to shut up. "Not like we're from a real Grand Canyon family, like at all, but I feel like that's a failing or something. Have you seen the Grand Canyon?"

"No," Remus slides his shoes over the roof tiles a little unsteadily. Sirius is letting his legs dangle over the edge of the gutter, apparently unbothered. By the height, by his nebulous plans. "Give me your lighter," Remus says. 

Sirius doesn't. Sirius keeps talking. "I've made a list of all the weird roadside shit I want to see," he says. "Hot springs in South Dakota--" Remus pushes Sirius's hand out of the way and plucks his lighter out of his pocket and uses it to light the join he'd stuck in his own pocket. 

"How many days will it take?" Remus asks. Sirius looks back and up at him, holds out his hand for the joint. 

"A week," Sirius says. "Though longer maybe, I don't know. Then I'll crash at James's and loiter on the beach for three weeks until school starts or whatever. Get a tan. Read some books. Make out with an actor or two. Leave some zucchinis on porches with little notes that say 'Courtesy of Remus Lupin.'"

"Please tell me that's a euphemism."

"Absolutely not." 

Sirius smiles at him, natural, genuine. There's a fine line to all of Sirius's emotions that can be hard to read and for all the moments Remus thinks he's not half bad at it there are others that he's off by a mile. A balance of contradictions - good looks and a smile that can say  _Trust me_ as quickly as it can say  _Fuck off._

But, of course, Sirius is here right there, and not there.

"So you have a route planned out?" Remus asks. "Places to stay?" 

"Dirt cheap, but yeah," Sirius says. "Trying to avoid notice on the company credit card unless completely necessary. Why?" He pauses, answers his own question in a delighted voice. "Wait," he says. "Are you feigning logistical interest in regards to my well-being in order to-- Remus--" 

"No," Remus says quickly. "Well, listen--" and suddenly Sirius is up in his face, knees braced on the gutter, hair falling over his shoulder. His eyes are bright and grey. 

People don't fall into archetypes anywhere outside of fiction, not really, but it is true that sometimes it's easier to think of them that way. There are James people, and Peter people, and Sirius and Remus people, and Lily Evans people and they all do what you more or less expect them to, even when that's doing something completely unexpected. Sirius is not a  _Remus_ person, not the kind of person Remus ought to be anyway. The kind that reacts with skepticism or annoyance, who bemoans how late it is, who does his homework on time and worries about his scholarship and sweats the small stuff. A Sirius person, of course, spends money without thinking about it and is always louder than everybody else and only wears black and runs late and complicates things. 

Sirius isn't a Remus person, and a Remus person wouldn't be considering this at all, would be gently but firmly pushing him aside and sliding back in the window and going to bed. But Remus isn't always a Remus person himself, which is the irony of it all, and Sirius isn't a Sirius person all the times either. 

Maybe he's stoned. 

But if he's learned anything so far in his life it's that it's better to play it safe, except when it absolutely isn't.

"My mom will say no," he says, which is a lie. 

"Maybe," Sirius says. 

"I don't know how I'm gonna get home."

"Maybe," Sirius says.

"We split the music fifty-fifty."

"Maybe," Sirius's mouth creeps up an inch. 

"And you will drive the speed limit." 

"Sure." 

"And I want to see the route before I commit to anything. You can't complain if I want to stop and see something interesting. And in exchange you will let me study next semester, because I'm taking that law class and it's going to be a bitch and I have to pass it--" 

"Yeah," Sirius says. "You got it. You fucking bastard. You stone-faced son of a bitch." 

"It could be an adventure," Remus says, and in saying that he knows that that's it, and he's committing, and the expression on Sirius's face solidifies that. 

He's known Sirius for two years - he should know he's no good at saying no to him by now. 

"There is no question about that," Sirius says. he puts his hand on Remus's shoulder and they smile at each other, and the night feels like it's filled with possibility, with the promise of absurdity and complexity in the expanse of stars, untouched by streetlights, that stretch above them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Sirius," Remus says. He's leaning against his headboard and Sirius has his laptop propped up in his lap. Remus has to admit that he's impressed at Sirius's pretty neatly laid out list of things to do and distances between them, but there's something that's popped out at him and he'll regret it forever if he doesn't say something now. 

"What?" Sirius asks. "What'd I fuck up?" 

"Nothing," Remus says, "it looks good I just -- okay -- there are other ways to go out of Chicago than the way you've picked you know." 

"Yeah," Sirius says. "I know." 

"Then why," Remus asks, dreading the answer, "have you chosen to drive all the way across the entire state of South Dakota, exactly?" 

Sirius turns to smile at him, and grins, and doesn't offer any other answer than that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remus Lupin, 1:10 a.m.

 _i'm coming with sirius after all._  

 

James Potter, 1:15 a.m.

_who are u and what have u done with remus lupin!!!!!!_

 

Remus Lupin, 1:20 a.m.

_revenge of the pod people. i'll see you in a week_

 

Peter Pettigrew, 1:40 a.m.

_wait where are u n sirius going?????? ur coming here??????? why is everyone awake rn?????_

 

Peter Pettigrew, 1:45 a.m.

_and u mean invasion of the body snatchers anyway_

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remus Lupin, 1:11 a.m.

_if i tell you i think i agreed to go on a cross country road trip with sirius are you going to tell me it's the stupidest thing i've ever done & suggest i re-evaluate my life & priorities._

 

Lily Evans, 1:30 a.m.

_yes._

 

Lily Evans, 1:32 a.m.

_are you serious???_

 

Lily Evans, 1:33 a.m.

_don't even start with that. are you really?_

 

Remus Lupin 1:35 a.m.

_if things go south i'll hitchhike_

 

Lily Evans, 1:40 a.m.

_i won't pick you up._

 

 

Lily Evans, 1:45 a.m.

_well i will, but i will say i told you so._

 


End file.
